IN WHICH A FOX DOUBLES ONCE TOO OFTEN
IT is conceivable that Henry Antrim clicked his “O. K.” at the close
of the wire talk with Despatcher Disbrow with a lighter heart than he
had carried for many a day. Truly, everything still hinged upon the
capture of Gasset, but the blessed optimism of youth is always ready
to make light of contingencies, and the chief clerk threw himself upon
the night operator’s bunk to snatch a few hours’ rest, little thinking
that the conclusion of the whole matter still hung in a balance whose
beam would tip as his own energy and presence of mind might decide. And
while he slept, the net spread so promptly by the whispering wires was
already entangling the murderer.
With the criminal’s instinctive distrust of small towns to narrow his
choice of a refuge, Gasset had put his fate into the keeping of chance
by spinning a coin: heads, to lose himself in the untabulated crowds
thronging the streets and byways of Leadville; tails, to drop from the
train at some lonely station in the mountains, whence he could make
his way on foot to one of the more isolated camps. The chance of the
spun coin sent him to Leadville; and when, on the second morning of his
sojourn in the carbonate camp, he learned from the newspapers that his
bad aim had disposed of an inconvenient accomplice without materially
marring his plan of vengeance on Brant, he exulted openly, and from
that on went his way without concealment, believing that he had safely
outrun his evil hour.
For this cause it came about that the Leadville reduplication of the
telegram offering a reward for his arrest was scarcely an hour old
when a police officer interrupted a quiet game of cards in a den in
lower State Street, laid hands upon the winner, a big-boned man in an
ill-fitting suit of dusty black, searched him, and took from him a big
revolver with the name “J. Harding” scratched on the butt.
Gasset surrendered at discretion, not suspecting the nature of the
charge against him, and, having a due regard for the possibilities
of escape, made no resistance which should warrant the use of the
handcuffs. So all went amicably until the officer, who was less
discreet than his prisoner, told Gasset for what he was wanted. At the
naming of the thing the ex-house-breaker caught his breath, set his
teeth upon a fiercely growled oath, smote his captor skilfully upon the
point of the jaw, and made a wild dash for liberty.
The policeman gave chase courageously, ignoring the broken jaw and
firing ever and anon at the dodging fugitive. But Gasset made good
his escape, threading the intricacies of alleys and streets in the
lower town until, by the time the hue and cry was properly raised, he
was free of the houses and skirting the slope of the mountain which
overlooks California Gulch. Here he might have rested, but the terror
of it was too new upon him. So he pushed on and always on over the
bleak mountain side, doubling and twisting on his course, and cursing
the snow which at day dawn would point a sure trail for his pursuers to
follow. And thus running and stumbling and cursing, he came out finally
in the stunted pine _chapparal_ opposite the railway station at Malta.
From this point three ways were open to him. He might turn his face
northward toward the new camps beyond Tennessee Pass, avoiding the
railroad and trusting to the hospitality of the mountains for succour
of bread and meat on the way. He might push westward over one of the
passes to the sparsely settled gulches beyond the main range, but this
was a still more precarious bread-and-meat hazard. Or, lastly, he might
follow the railroad to the eastward, putting the chance of better speed
and fewer privations against the greater risk of discovery and capture.
He knew well enough that either of the foot flights would be safer than
the alternative; but it was late in the season, and the early snows
promised hardships a-plenty. While he was yet weighing these hardships
against the perils of the easier route, an east-bound freight train
crawling slowly through the Malta yards turned the scale, and dashing
swiftly across the tracks he climbed catlike into an empty box car what
time the train was gathering headway for the rush down the valley.
At the moment of decision he had no plan more definite than the putting
of as great a distance as possible between himself and the scene of his
late encounter with the Leadville officer; but by the time the morning
sun was gilding the snow-capped peaks of Princeton and Harvard he had
hit upon a strategic series of moves which was not less ingenious than
it was daring. Knowing that he could not hope to remain undiscovered in
the box car after daybreak, he determined to leave the freight train at
the first stop, to wait for and board the early east-bound passenger,
to ride thereon openly until his identity and ostensible intention
were discovered, and then to take the chance of out-witting everybody
by doubling back to the westward from the meeting point of the two day
trains.
It was a hazardous game to play, with the noose of the hangman at the
end of it as a penalty for unsuccess; but he could think of no better.
The chief hazards were two: If his identification should come too soon,
he would be obliged to leave the east-bound train before it should
reach the meeting point, and there would be the desperate risk of
waiting at some small station until the west-bound train should arrive.
And if it should be delayed until the moment of doubling, he would lose
all upon the single throw. But, on the other hand, if the stratagem
succeeded, if he should be lucky enough to send the hunt eastward on
a false scent, much precious time would be gained and present safety
would be fairly well assured.
In pursuance of this plan he dropped from the freight train while it
was slowing into Buena Vista, and was so far successful as to find
a hiding place in which he could watch and wait unobserved for the
east-bound passenger. When that came, and he had taken a seat in the
smoking car, the perils began. The conductor eyed him suspiciously,
took his fare to Denver, and a little later came back to sit down
for a friendly chat which soon developed by insensible degrees into
a cross-examination. Gasset answered as best he might, writhing and
swearing under his breath. It was what he had expected and provided
for, but it had come too soon. The conductor desisted finally and went
about his business, but Gasset drew fresh breath of alarm when he saw
the brakeman lounge forward to take his seat on one of the newsboy’s
boxes. And when the brakeman kept his place doggedly past station after
station, ignoring his duties, Gasset argued that he was already under
surveillance and began to nerve himself for whatever desperate struggle
was in store for him.
The fugitive’s surmise was entirely correct. Since early morning the
wires had been buzzing with the news of the night; and inasmuch as the
railway afforded the most obvious line of escape, every trainman was
on the watch for the man whose description had been sown broadcast by
the telltale wires. For this cause, and knowing both the fact of the
reward and the figure of it, Conductor Harker thought himself in luck.
Voltamo was the first station ahead where a constable could be found;
and to Voltamo the conductor wired at the first opportunity.
Antrim was at his post in the telegraph office, filling the place of
the invalided branch despatcher, when the conductor’s message arrived,
and he took it upon himself to make sure that the town marshal and two
deputies were at the station to meet the train. That done, he waited in
a fever of impatience for the event to mature, and when the suspense
indoors became unbearable, he gave his place to the day operator and
went out to be in at the death.
He had not long to wait. The whistle of the coming train was echoing
in the upper cañon, and the little knot of loungers which had gathered
about the marshal and his deputies broke apart and fell back to
give the officers free play. There was a west-bound freight in the
upper yard, waiting, with a man at the switch, to pull out after the
passenger train should arrive; and the rear trucks of the latter were
no more than fairly over the movable rail before it was set for the
siding, and the freight began to worm its way out around the double
curve.
The incoming passenger train slid down the grade to the station with
brake shoes smoking, and Conductor Harker swung off and caught himself
with a quick little run.
“I’ve got him!--alive and kicking. He’s in the forward end of the
smoker,” he cried; and in a flash the marshal darted into one end of
the car while his deputies cut off the retreat at the other.
Something to the surprise of all three, they met in the middle of the
car without their quarry. There were not more than a dozen passengers
in the seats, and no one of them remotely answered the requirements of
the Gasset description. The marshal threw up a window and yelled to the
conductor:
“Come in here and show us your man!”
Harker was with them at the word, but there was blank astoundment in
his face. “Suffering Moses! you’ve let him get away!” he gasped. “He
was right there in that second seat not more than a minute ago when we
pulled down over the switch!”
“Well, you can see for yourself he isn’t here now,” quoth the marshal.
“You hold the train a minute while we look through the other cars.”
The detention was not called for. Voltamo is a locomotive division
station, and before the engines were changed the marshal and his aids
had searched every possible hiding place in the train. Antrim knew that
they had done their duty faithfully, but he was exasperated at the
conductor’s apparent neglect.
“It is all your fault, Harker!” he said hotly. “You ought to have had
sense enough to keep your eyes or your hands on him!”
“I ain’t saying a word,” said Harker. “But what can I do now?”
“Do? Why, take your train and go on. There isn’t anything to stop for
now that he’s gone.”
The conductor obeyed, glad enough to be out of it, and Antrim turned to
the marshal. “I’m sorry I got you out on a wild-goose chase,” he said.
“What do you suppose became of him? Or did Harker only imagine he had
him?”
“Oh, he was there, right enough. I asked some of the passengers in the
smoker and they all saw him. By gravy! look at that, will you?--fell
plum from the top o’ the car and never turned a hair!”
Antrim looked, and saw much more than did the marshal. The west-bound
freight had stalled on the double curve, and during the detention of
the passenger train had been backing and filling to get headway. Just
as the marshal spoke a drawbar pulled out, and the sudden jerk of the
forward section flung a man who was clinging to the roof-hold of a box
car far out into the ditch. He was on his feet again in a twinkling,
making a quick run for a hand car which stood blocked on a siding.
Antrim yelled as he saw him kick the block from beneath the wheel and
scramble upon the deck of the car.
“That’s your man! Wing him as he goes by or he’ll get away yet! There’s
a safety switch at the lower end, and the car will jump it and keep the
track!”
The man threw himself fiercely upon the driving lever of the hand
car, and the light gear truck came spinning down the grade under his
vigorous strokes. The marshal and his two aids coolly drew their
weapons and waited. The fugitive would have to pass within thirty feet
of the platform, and the marksmen could afford to wait until the flying
target was at short range. At the critical instant the three pistols
cracked as one, and the toiling figure at the lever dropped behind the
gear casing as the car shot past with ever-increasing momentum.
“Heavens and earth, I hope you haven’t killed him!” panted Antrim,
while they were running down the track after the retreating hand car.
“He’s got to talk some before he dies.”
“He’ll never do that,” said the marshal confidently. “He’ll never wag
his jaw any more this side of the range. I don’t miss--By gravy! do you
see that?”
The four pursuers stopped in speechless astoundment. The hand car had
reached the safety switch, clearing it at a bound and alighting fairly
upon the rails of the main line, and at the same instant the prone
figure behind the gear casing straightened up and flung itself once
more upon the rocking lever. Two pistols crashed simultaneously, and
then the car with its labouring burden dodged out of sight and range
around an elbow in the lower cañon.
“G-g-great Scott! M-m-missed him all the t-time!” stammered one of the
deputies, whose speech failed him at a crisis; and the big marshal
flung his weapon down and ground it into the ballast under his heel in
a fine frenzy of impotent wrath.
Antrim was the first to recover presence of mind, or some semblance of
it. “Come back with me and we’ll catch him yet!” he shouted, leading
the race up the yard toward the relieved passenger engine, which the
engineer was about to back under the coal chute. A breathless minute
later they were clambering aboard, and the engineer recognised the
chief clerk.
“Catch that hand car for us, Tom!” gasped Antrim, fighting for breath
and coherence. “There’s a--there’s a man’s life depending on it. Turn
her loose!”
The engineer nodded and dropped the reversing lever forward with a
crash. One of the yard men saw them coming and ran to set the switch,
and in a gathering tempest of clamour the engine shot out on the main
line and the chase began afresh.
Two miles down the cañon they came in sight of the hand car darting
around the curves ahead of them. Gasset had abandoned the lever when
the increasing speed of the car made it dangerous to try to keep up
with the quick strokes of it, and was crouching on the deck, screening
himself as well as he could behind the driving mechanism. Seeing this,
the marshal borrowed the stuttering deputy’s revolver and watched his
chances for another shot. Antrim saw, and shook his head, shouting to
make himself heard above the din and clamour of the flying locomotive:
“Don’t kill him; we must take him alive, if we can.”
The marshal lowered the weapon, and the engineer signed to Antrim to
come closer. “We can’t make it,” he protested, giving the spinning
wheels a taste of the air brake. “He’s got the hill with him, and that
light car will keep the track when we can’t. See?”
Antrim nodded. “Keep him in sight, if you can,” he shouted back. “If
you can hold your own till we come to that let-up in the grade at Berg
Siding, maybe we can run him down.”
But the end of the chase was nearer, though it need not have been if
Gasset could have had the courage of his despair. Before the “let-up”
came in sight there was a series of blood-chilling curves around which
the hand car lurched with increasing velocity. Gasset’s hand sought the
brake lever. The fusillade of pistol shots, the swift down-rush between
the echoing walls of the cañon, the hopelessness of any escape from the
shrieking monster in the rear, all went to the unnerving of him, and he
applied the brake before he fully realized what would follow any sudden
checking of speed in that tortuous pathway.
What did follow brought the chase to a calamitous end. The flying
wheels of the light car answered promptly to the pressure of the brake,
and the car plunged sullenly through a cutting, promising to come to a
full stop on the curve beyond. The hunted one sprang to his feet and
kicked savagely at the brake lever. It was jammed, and he was too late.
The pursuing locomotive dashed through the cutting and was fairly upon
him before he could jump and save himself.
Antrim saw the doomed one kicking at the jammed lever and heard his
scream of terror and the crash of the collision in the same pulse beat.
What came after seemed like the awakening from a hideous dream, though
the realities asserted themselves once more when they were lifting him
from the wreck of the shattered hand car. “There is life in him yet;
handle him gently, boys,” he said. “If he dies before he can talk an
innocent man will hang for it.”
They made a rude bed for him with their coats in the empty coal pit on
the engine, and so got the crushed body of him back to Voltamo and to a
bunk in the freight shed at the station. Antrim could not neglect his
duties, but the physician’s verdict cheered him a little.
“He is a dead man,” so ran the verdict, “and that probably within
twenty-four hours. But there is a chance that he will revive a little
toward the last.”
“A chance that he will be able to tell us what we have to know?” asked
Antrim.
“Yes. Have your lawyer here, and the witnesses. When the man begins to
find himself, call me, and I’ll try to keep him alive till you get what
you need--that is, if he will give it to you.”
“He has got to give it to us,” returned Antrim desperately; and when he
had made all the preparations suggested by the physician he telegraphed
the facts to Forsyth, and settled down to work his way through the
grimmest day of waiting that has ever been marked off in any calendar
of suspense.
The end came in the dusk of the evening when the shadows were beginning
to fill the deeper clefts in the mighty cañon. Gasset opened his eyes,
stirred feebly, and asked for liquor; and Antrim called the lawyer and
the witnesses, and sent out in hot haste for the physician.
As it fell out, there was time and to spare; time for a halting
confession from the dying murderer, in which he told no more lies
than he could help; time, needless time, after that for the slow and
reluctant passing of a hopeless soul from a maimed and tortured body.
Antrim drew breath of blessed relief when it was all over, but it was
a full hour afterward before he could compose himself sufficiently to
send a second telegram to Forsyth.
“Gasset died at 7.12 this P. M. He was conscious at the last, and
made full confession and deposition in legal form. Same to you by
express on Number Two to-night. Hearty congratulations to Brant. Will
be in Denver day after to-morrow.
“ANTRIM.”